What if Hitler Had Won the Second World War? Part 2

About what might have happened if Hitler had won World War II, an alternate view on world history.

What If Hitler Had Won The Second World War?

It will be remembered how, at this time, the U.S. found itself in the midst of an electoral campaign. Franklin Roosevelt had decided to seek the presidency for an unprecedented third term in 1940. The Republican convention met, as previously scheduled, in Philadelphia on June 20. Instead of an internationalist such as Wendell Willkie, the GOP nominated the isolationist Robert A. Taft. Roosevelt had to adjust his inclinations accordingly. Having first assured Americans "again and again" that none of their sons would be sent abroad to fight, in his decisive radio address before the election he announced that those who expected the U.S. to intervene abroad were bound to be disappointed. "My friends," Roosevelt said, "this is our rendezvous with Destiny. We are not the Arsenal of Democracy. We are the Home Plate of Freedom." He won the election by a narrow margin; but he had to face huge Republican majorities in the Congress, as well as an attack on Guantanamo Bay by Fascist Cuban rebels, led by a Maj. Benito Castro.

An entire generation of Europeans now remembers the forties, when their continent lay under the thumb of the Germans. The Second World War was over. Hitler's word was law. To everyone's surprise, things were not as unbearable as had been expected. The energies of the conquerors were devoted to the building of gigantic superhighways. Volkswagen factories were erected across the continent. More important, there were not enough Germans to police all of Europe. It was becoming increasingly evident that the rulers of the Third Reich, under Hitler, were divided among themselves. On the one hand, Goebbels and Himmler attempted to refashion most of Europe in the Nazi image, recruiting English boys into the SS and forcing the French to consume huge quantities of inferior German beer. On the other hand, people such as Hess and Goring hoped to reconcile the conquered peoples to German domination. Hitler, whose health was declining and whose energies and resolution were more and more erratic, leaned alternately toward these two factions. About the U.S. he was undecided. He allowed, for example, the Speer Mission in 1943, when this German hierarch and architect came to Washington with a design to erect the Pentagon in neoclassical style. On the other hand. Hitler allowed Himmler's progeny to establish themselves in Liverpool, where they eventually turned their savage energies to making music.

These clumsy German attempts to placate the conquered peoples of Europe were not, however, typical of German behavior in the eastern part of the continent. The Germans ruled Russia with great brutality, deporting, imprisoning, and killing large numbers of Russians and even larger numbers of Jews. The Stalin regime, in Omsk, took all of this in silence. There were reasons to suggest that in certain matters, including the persecution of the Jews, Stalin approved of what Hitler was doing. More important, however, was the fear of the Soviets before the Yellow Peril. We know, of course, that in this respect, too, Stalin's calculation was wrong. The Japanese, disappointed with the sudden end of the war in Europe, chose to make war, not on the Soviet Union, but on the U.S., with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941.